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More Bad Buzz for Bees: Record Number of Honeybee Colonies Died Last Winter:
Bee colony death continues to rise. According to the Bee Informed Partnership's latest survey, released this week, U.S. beekeepers lost nearly 40% of their honeybee colonies last winter — the greatest reported winter hive loss since the partnership started its surveys 13 years ago. The total annual loss was slightly above average.
The survey included responses from nearly 4,700 beekeepers managing almost 320,000 hives, making up about 12% of total managed honey-producing colonies in the United States.
Bee decline has many causes, including decreasing crop diversity, poor beekeeping practices and loss of habitat. Pesticides weaken bees' immune systems and can kill them. Varroa mites (full, ominous species name: Varroa destructor) latch onto honeybees and suck their "fat body" tissue[pdf], stunting and weakening them and potentially causing entire colonies to collapse.
"Beekeepers are trying their best to keep [mites] in check, but it's really an arms race," says Nathalie Steinhauer, science coordinator for the Bee Informed Partnership and co-author of the report ([Dennis] vanEngelsdorp is also an author). "That's concerning, because we know arms races don't usually end well."
Steinhauer says Varroa mites are the "number one concern" around wintertime. They've become harder to control, she says, because some of the tools that beekeepers have been using — chemical strips that attract and kill mites, essential oils and organic acids — are losing their efficacy.
Pollinators are responsible for one of every three bites of food we take, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Most of these pollinators are domesticated honeybees. They have become essential for many flowering crops, including blueberries, almonds and cherries. Wild insects can't be relied on to pollinate hundreds of acres of these crops, so fruit and nut producers call in commercial honeybee colonies instead.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday June 21 2019, @12:27AM (3 children)
Clear conclusion: Replace lawns with wildflower plantings (assuming they aren't being replaced by organized gardens). Packs of seeds are cheap and easy to come by, and a quick toss of them will make things rather pretty. Plus you don't have to mow it. Unfortunately, there are lots of city ordinances and homeowners juntas across the US that make that sort of thing illegal. I'm unclear who decided that trimmed grass lawn [landbridge.eco] was more desirable than wildflowers [pinimg.com], but if we're going to improve things for bees and other insects it would be a good idea to change those laws / HOA rules.
I mean, it's weird enough that we dedicate a whole bunch of conveniently-located land to no useful purpose, and then put tons of time and energy into keeping it "nice" by standards that were made up less than a century ago, but to do that when it could quite literally make it impossible for us to eat is just lunacy.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 21 2019, @03:08AM
I've done the wild yard thing, and it's not very nice to go for a walk in, but a mix of cleared field and wild area is a very nice thing, particularly if you don't like looking at your neighbors - a 6' unmowed strip will grow up to block the view pretty well.
I'm seriously considering widening the patch that our robot mower is kept out of so we can have more tall growth stuff - it's hard to keep a big garden cleared of weeds, but if the garden's purpose is to grow weeds...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 21 2019, @03:10AM (1 child)
Good luck doing anything with HOAs - you're dealing with a very small groups of generally very small minds, no amount of rational discourse will ever change an HOA's course.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday June 21 2019, @11:40AM
I called them "homeowners juntas", with the implication of petty dictatorships, for a reason.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.